Innovation is the solution to environmental pollution. It will be men like Elon Musk who save the environment, not government programs.1 But we must let them do it without government subsidies (see the BYD video below). As that video shows, government money tends to corrupt. It's not just companies that get corrupted by government subsidies, many environmental agencies and organisations have also been corrupted by their lure (see The Planet of the Humans).
Government subsidies may also be locking us into old technologies, resulting in more harm than good (see YouTube EV Mandates vs. Freedom | Mark P. Mills ‘Hillsdale College’).
There is a high demand for environmentally friendly products; we must let the free market do its thing. Government subsidies are not necessary if we lower taxes and do not overregulate. If our taxes are too high, and the regulations too strict, we destroy companies that are trying to do the right thing and enable high polluters to take control of the market (see the video below).
And if we are really serious about saving the environment, we will penalise countries that are heavy polluters by making it more expensive to buy their products.
Some taxes are necessary, and some regulation is necessary, but if you destroy the economy through high taxes and overregulation2 you will destroy innovation, and with it, the environment.3
Bare soil releases carbon instead of storing it (due to soil erosion, see How Much Carbon Can Soil Store). We have to reverse desertification.
I used to think that planting trees was the only solution to desertification, but after watching the following videos I realised I was wrong.
Human beings can play an important role in improving the environment (see the following videos). Restoring different environments requires different approaches.4
Cattle can also be used to reclaim land, making it possible to grow crops (and/or trees) on what was semi-arid land.5
When we fail to clean forest floors, the consequences can be horrific.
According to WHO (the World Health Organisation), 7 million people die annually from air pollution. That is one reason why some climate scientists are beginning to re-examine nuclear. (And some countries are embracing it in a big way, particularly Japan.)
What about solar panels? Solar panels on buildings is a good thing, but when they destroy vast areas of vegetation, they are not.
We must weigh up the costs of using nuclear power against the cost of not using it.6
The following may be part of the solution to the problems raised in the video above.
The history of science shows that many scientists are very slow to change their minds. The first to discover something which goes against current "established" scientific facts are often lambasted and treated like outcasts. Then a few more scientists verify the findings and slowly other scientists come on board until it becomes a consensus. The limits to how much carbon dioxide can warm the atmosphere may be one of those issues (see video below).
What about overpopulation? Are we going to run out of resources if the world's population keeps growing? Or will we continue to overcome the limitations?
1. Government inefficiency does great harm to the environment. We must not waste scarce resources.
"Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses." - Thomas Sowell.
Governments all over the world are very wasteful—far more wasteful than the private sector. (Perhaps the most wasteful of all, was the Soviet Union. For examples see Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. See also the short video Milton Friedman: Private Vs. Public Sector 'The Atlas Society, Ltd')
2. Some regulation is necessary.
3. For examples of how the government undermines innovation and creates problems see The Government Against the Economy by George Reisman.
4. Anyone who really cares about the environment should consider the approaches above and the approaches in this playlist. See here.
5. Here is the TED talk to which Savory referred to in the video above. How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change
6. There is much dishonesty regarding the cost of nuclear power. See More misinformation from CSIRO on Nuclear (see also James Hansen & Michael Shellenberger: Nuclear Power? Are Renewables Enough?)
7. Some environmentalists believe that we should be less concerned about carbon dioxide and more concerned about other pollutants, as carbon dioxide helps plant growth (see Dr Patrick Moore on Carbon Dioxide and Plant Growth).